1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for measurement of the mass of elements or molecules constituting an unknown compound or mixture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The art of measuring the mass of more than two kinds of components (this number of kinds will hereinafter be referred to as "N" for convenience) constituting an unknown matter by the use of measured values of transmitted amount or scattered amount of radiation has already been well known to the public.
One of the apparatuses for radiation analysis of the described type was disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 57-1781. Dealing with a substance to be measured including N kinds of elements, this well-known apparatus is constructed of N systems of radiation measurement which will differently respond to each of the elements and a linearization circuit which will compensate the responses made by these systems of radiation measurement and derive therefrom a linear combination of the mass of each component element per unit volume of the substance to be measured, wherein four-rule arithmetic computation is made based on the outputs from the linearization circuit so that the mass of each component element in the unit volume is computed. Further, other values, or properties, of the measured substance can also be obtained by computation from the mass of these component elements per unit volume.
The prior art apparatus will be described in more detail taking the case of the substance to be measured being composed of three kinds of elements. In the apparatus of the prior art, when the outputs of the linearization circuit are represented by V.sub.1, V.sub.2, and V.sub.3, each value thereof can, with the mass of each element in the substance under measurement expressed by X.sub.1, X.sub.2, and X.sub.3, be given by the following equations: EQU V.sub.1 =K.sub.1 (a.sub.11 X.sub.1 +a.sub.12 X.sub.2 +a.sub.13 X.sub.3) EQU V.sub.2 =K.sub.2 (a.sub.21 X.sub.1 +a.sub.22 X.sub.2 +a.sub.23 X.sub.3) EQU V.sub.3 =K.sub.3 (a.sub.31 X.sub.1 +a.sub.32 X.sub.2 +a.sub.33 X.sub.3)
where K.sub.1, K.sub.2, and K.sub.3 are constants depending on the apparatus used, and a.sub.11, a.sub.12, a.sub.13, a.sub.21, a.sub.22, a.sub.23, a.sub.31, a.sub.32, and a.sub.33 are constants determined by mutual actions between the component elements and the radiation.
X.sub.1, X.sub.2, and X.sub.3 are generally obtainable from the above equations. However, to do so, it becomes necessary to provide systems of radiation measurement which are the same in number as the kinds of the component elements and which are different in their responses to respective component elements. This is true also of the case, for example, where the mass of each element per unit volume of the measured substance is to be determined, namely, then, it is necessary to provide systems for radiation measurement in the same number as the number of the component elements.
With the described prior art apparatus for radiation analysis, in such a case as mentioned above where X.sub.1 /(X.sub.1 +X.sub.2 +X.sub.3), X2/(X.sub.1 +X.sub.2 +X.sub.3), X3/(X.sub.1 +X.sub.2 +X.sub.3) are sought, the above three equations become necessary. This has required three kinds of systems for radiation measurement and has involved a problem that the apparatus becomes rather complex.